“Once a day, I cast my eyes heavenward and say, ‘Thank you for Donald Trump,’” Michael Wolff said last spring.

He has good reason to thank the president. Without Trump, Wolff would not have made this year’s rankings of the world’s highest-paid authors.

After The Guardian published leaked quotes from Wolff’s explosive tell-all Fire and Fury in January, Trump’s attorney sent the author and his publisher Henry Holt a cease-and-desist letter, alleging the book contained libelous and defamatory information. Trump, unsurprisingly, also attacked Wolff on Twitter: “Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book.”

Far from deterred, Henry Holt took advantage of the free publicity and moved up the release date of Fire and Fury. The “really boring and untruthful book” flew off the shelves, topping 1.7 million copies sold across hardcover, e-book and audio formats in its first three weeks. In our 12-month scoring period, it sold 1,015,000 hardcover copies in the U.S. alone, in addition to tremendous e-book, audio and international sales.

Thanks to Fire and Fury—and Trump—Wolff earned an estimated $13 million from June 1, 2017, to June 1, 2018, before taxes and fees, placing seventh among publishing’s top moneymakers. The only newcomer and nonfiction writer on the list, Wolff supplemented his massive royalties with seven-figure deals for a sequel to Fire and Fury and the film and television rights; a series is in the works with Endeavor Content.

James Patterson is back on top after J.K. Rowling nabbed the title of highest-paid author last year.

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The world’s 11 highest-paid authors sold 24.5 million print books combined in the U.S. during our scoring period, logging $283 million. The prolific James Patterson takes first place, earning $86 million and selling 4.8 million books in the U.S. alone, according to NPD BookScan, which tracks 85% of the domestic print market.

Patterson’s earnings are likely to surge next year thanks to The President Is Missing, which was released just outside our scoring period. The political thriller, co-written with Bill Clinton, has sold more than 660,000 copies since its June release.

This is the 10th time that Patterson has ranked first in the list’s two-decade history. Patterson’s secret to his success is persistence; 31 publishers turned down his first book, but he refused to give up. “Don't take ‘no’ when your gut tells you ‘yes,’” Patterson told Forbes last year.

J.K. Rowling still made $54 million without releasing a new Harry Potter book.

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J.K. Rowling takes second place with $54 million, a $41 million drop from last year, when she briefly took the top spot from Patterson. The Harry Potter scribe’s book sales plummeted without a new book about The Boy Who Lived, but Rowling earned plenty from back-catalog sales—Rowling sold 2.9 million copies in the U.S.—as well as theme parks and the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child productions on Broadway and in London’s West End. Although the latest Fantastic Beasts film was poorly received by critics and will almost certainly end up the lowest-grossing Harry Potter film to date, the franchise is far from over; three more Fantastic Beasts movies are planned, for a total of five.

The king of horror, boosted by the success of It, has several television adaptations in the works.

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Stephen King rounds out the top three with $27 million. The king of horror sold 2.7 million domestic books, boosted by the success of the movie version of It, adapted from his 1986 novel of the same name. King nearly doubled his earnings by collecting an eight-figure paycheck from the film, which grossed $700 million worldwide on a $35 million budget. The clown-centric movie became the highest-grossing R-rated horror movie at the domestic box office, and the sequel, planned for next fall, could break that record again.

This year, The Girl on the Train author Paula Hawkins went missing from the list. The British author first made the rankings in 2016 with earnings of $10 million from her debut novel, but her latest thriller, Into The Water, failed to live up to its predecessor. In the U.K., the paperback edition of The Girl on the Train outsoldInto the Water by nearly 100,000 copies last year.

All earnings estimates are from June 1, 2017, through June 1, 2018. Figures are pretax; fees for agents, managers and lawyers are not deducted. Earnings estimates are based on data from NPD BookScan and Box Office Mojo, as well as interviews with industry insiders, including some of the authors themselves.